Still down winds the warrior in pathway of stone,
Now menac’d with spirits, now dark and alone;
Till far in the gloom of the murky air
A pond’rous lamp sheds unearthly glare.
Then eager the knight presses on to the flame,
Holy mother!—Why shudders his stalwart frame?
A wide chasm opes ’neath his wond’ring view,
And now what availeth his falchion true.
Loudly the caverns with laughter ring,
And the eyeless spectres forward spring:
Now shrive thee young Walter, one moment of fear,
And thy doom is to dwell ’neath the ocean drear.
One instant Sir Walter looks down from the brink
Of the bottomless chasm, then ceases to shrink;
Doffs hauberk and basnet, full fearless and fast,
And darts like an eagle the hell-gulf past.
Forefend thee, good knight, but the demon fell
Now rises to crush thee from nethermost hell;
And monsters most horrible hiss thee around,
And coil round thy limbs from the slimy ground.
A noise, as if worlds in dire conflict crash,
Is heard ’mid the vast ocean’s billowy splash;
But it quails not the heart of Sir Robert’s brave son,
He will conquer the fiend on the eve of Saint John.
He seizes the bugle with golden chain,
To sound it aloud once, twice, and again;
It turns to a snake in his startled grasp,
And its mouthpiece is arm’d with the sting of the asp.
In vain is hell’s rage, strike fierce as it may
The Wizard well knows ’tis the end of his sway;
For the bugle is fill’d with the warrior’s breath,
And thrice sounded loud in the caverns of death.
The magic cock crows from a brazen bill,
And it shakes its broad wings, as it shouts so shrill
And down sinks in lightning the demon array,
And the gates of the cavern in thunder give way.
Twelve pillars of jasper their columns uprear,
Twelve stately pillars of crystal clear,
With topaz and amethyst, sparkles the floor,
And the bright beryls stud the thick golden door.